About

I Am Young America is a social venture that promotes youth entrepreneurship as a means to combat unemployment and boost economic impact in cities. Our mission is to help revitalize American cities by empowering young, diverse entrepreneurs to launch businesses and mobilize citizens everywhere to champion them.

About Us

Our History

We got our start back in 2009 with I Am Young Detroit, an interactive, hip and vibrant blog that allowed users to nominate the young entrepreneurs that we would profile each month.

I Am Young America was launched in beta in 2015, hoping to grow on I Am Young Detroit’s early success. We highlight how teens, 20-somethings and 30-somethings all over the country are making their mark on their cities through entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation, this time also providing them with the tools to help them do it.

Through local content, guides, apps, hacks, services, and programs we support America’s under 40 entrepreneurs.

Our Challenge

The overall challenge we’re trying to tackle is the unemployment of America’s youngest (16 to 25) and brightest thinkers in urban cities. In March 2015, the overall U.S. unemployment rate was at 5.5 percent, and the unemployment rate of workers under the age of 25 were at 12.3 percent: 2.2 times as high. I Am Young America proposes entrepreneurship as a solution to this high unemployment rate of America’s youth.

The inaccessibility to the valuable resources available in local entrepreneurial ecosystems is another problem. Big cities often operate in silos, making it hard for the next generation of entrepreneurs to benefit from the valuable insights of those who came before them. We’re bridging that gap with our Fellowship Program.

We’ve also found that in large urban cities like our Detroit hometown, there is an inability for citizens to recognize, support and engage with young entrepreneurs easily. Our latest apps are designed to tackle that issue head on. Through them we hope to mobilize the general public to create an ecosystem of recognizing, connecting with, and supporting America’s youngest entrepreneurs.

Our Content

Our inspired content includes the core storytelling of our website: we highlight with video, photography, illustration and written word, the stories of America’s most promising young civic entrepreneurs.

These are the trendsetting owners of brick and mortar retail stores, hip restaurants, tech startups, craft brands, and innovative products.